Ghost Story
by Lady Cinnibar
Summary: This is a typical hitchhiker ghost story with a happy-ish ending, a quickie tale. -personified state involved-


Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia. I do not own much of anything, really. I don't even own my college loans anymore.

*****Ghost Story*****

Maryland swore softly and leaned against her broken down car.

"Hey!" A voice called out, and she turned. A young woman was walking on the side of the road, "need a hand?"

"Nah, the car is really most sincerely dead. I'm waiting for my brother to pick me up."

"Want some company as you wait? These roads can be dangerous, and I'm getting a little tired of walking."

"Exercise?"

"Nah, my car broke down back that-ta-way." She thumbed behind her.

Probably just past where she turned on, past the curve.

"Sure, I wouldn't mind." Maryland smiled. Give the girl a break from walking.

They chatted quite a bit. The girl, no... woman, had a lot of unique turns of phrase, a rather poetic and round about way of stating things that Maryland actually enjoyed.

She was not at her final destination, stuck in a bit of a rut at the moment as her journey had stopped by no will of her own, and not where it was supposed to stop at all. Meaning she was traveling, and had hit a snag with the broken down car. Had to make a stop off to see her family. Used to live in the state, just dropping by to see the family grave site as everyone had begun to leave after a death in the family.

Then the girl yanked her back from the side of the road, almost into the forest, when a pickup truck zoomed by. It took off the mirror of her car, and left a massive gouge in its side. Rude raucous laughter floated up as the truck kept going on.

"Be careful." Her new friend, Jane, said softly. "There's a lot of deaths on this stretch of road, starting about a mile back, from the people who hot rod through here."

Maryland paused.

"I would rather not have broken down on Dead Man's Road. This road steals the strength from cars, and won't let those it's killed go. Vicious, the land is here..."

"You believe in ghosts," Maryland accused. Just like America.

A sheepish grin, "hard not to with roads like this. Ah well, legend says that one day a spirit will escape, and Dead Man's Road will loose it's strength, and the demon's curse will fade away."

"How?"

"If I knew how an escape was possible, I'd be doing something to break the curse. I really would." Her friend smiled, "too many lost here, too many dead crying for justice. You're lucky. It's the other side of the road, around the curve, that's the worst section of it. "

Maryland reached out with her senses, and shuddered. How did she miss this? A part of her very self was tainted, and she pushed against it.

America pulled up, and snugged as close to the tree line as possible at Jane's gesture.

"Alfred here is scared of ghosts."

"Not a bad policy. Even the good ones are like to go bad, furious at being trapped here when it's no fit place for a spirit to be. Very few are lucky enough to not get angry, hey? Or to know how to direct the anger at the right target."

"Hey, want a lift?" America offered.

"Are you sure? Dangerous to pick strangers up on the road."

"We'll be fine," the nation smiled, "I'd rather not have you walking on this monster of a road."

"Oh, I'd just go back into the forest. Very few cars get in there."

Maryland really liked Jane. She talked America down from quite a bit of his fear of ghosts.

She so impressed America that he took her to the graveyard, quite a bit out of his way, and they watched as she walked up to a pair of men turning away from a pair of graves. One was quite old, a frail old man, and a man reaching his sixties.

"Hey... Thank you, for everything you've done for me." She pulled off a necklace, and handed it to America. "This should help protect you from the ghosts, spirits, boggins, and beasties." He accepted it, staring at the stone, and putting it on at her gesture. She gave Maryland a simple ring off her finger, promising the same thing. Jane blew kisses at Maryland and America alike, "there's a funny building in the woods, and it doesn't feel right. Might be part of the problem, right? If you can fix it... you with freedom blue eyes, there are lots who only wish for freedom, and find themselves chained to this earth." She had said, before walking towards the men.

The two men both jumped, staring with utter shock.

"Daddy... brother... I love you, now and forever." She stood on tip toes, to kiss each one on the forehead, "Stop crying for the lost, the pain is over, and there is freedom." Light was shining through her form, the evening sun glowing.

Jane vanished in an explosion of white feathers, and sparkling lights.

Maryland and America froze.

Their passenger had died thirty years back, in a horrific accident. Stopped on the section of curve that was the 'worst', she'd been quickly fixing her car. Her body had been thrown to land right behind where Maryland's car had stopped, thrown with burning chunks of both vehicles. She'd gasped out her last words, but not finished. "Tell my family I..." The drag racer and his buddy in the other car had lived, though crippled even with the alcohol keeping them loose.

_"The curse is broken. For now. Take care of that cursed shed, before it curses the road and binds the innocent as its slaves once more."_ A voice said floating on the breeze.

The two mortals were intensely curious, and Maryland related everything, coming to the chilling realization that Jane never had touched her. It'd felt like something grabbing her jacket and yanking her back, but no actual touches. Nor had the ghost ever said anything that couldn't be understood as one of the dead speaking to one of the living.

"That's my sister. She's been seen... gesturing people away from the road before. Trying to keep people off of it."

"She had to come back and tell us she loved us." The old man's face looked heart broken, "my baby girl..."

"She'd fight through the fires of Hell for the sake of the two of us," her brother shook his head. "She'd have fought, she had to have fought, just to get the chance to tell us."

"That and your sister absolutely hated to be controlled. She must have been so furious at what held her here..."

"So it's a happy ending after all?" America shivered.

"Yeah. The ghost is gone..."

*****Story End*****

Sorry, since I've heard America was scared of ghosts I've had the itching to write a ghost story like the old hitch hiker ones, with a happy ending, and America getting a positive ghost encounter. If you like the idea, feel free to steal it, but let me know. I don't know what's in that shack, I don't know what caused the cursed stretch of road... and some part of me wishes to know. Thank you for reading. I'm still alive. I'd claim I'm working on Ghosts, but truthfully the log jam has become a dam on that river of inspiration. I'll try.


End file.
